Many applications exist that allow users to view, edit, analyze, and categorize digital video files. These applications may also include features that automatically identify faces that appear within the video and associate those faces with the person to which they belong. One way to organize a set of persons identified from a set of images or videos is to place similar faces into a face cluster. A face cluster is thus a collection of similar faces as determined by a face detection function.
Use of such face detection functions within a digital video may be difficult as a particular person may appear within a video with his or her face at an angle that is not amenable to the facial recognition function. Furthermore, a person will often appear midway through a shot or leave midway through a shot. A shot refers to a continuous video clip captured by a single video camera. A shot consists of a series of frames that when displayed in rapid succession, give the appearance of video. By analyzing the frames within video shots, face detection functions can be used to identify the faces that appear within the video.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.